Vancouver Summer Brewfest 2019 – Some of My Favorites.

I’ll have to be careful here, because there were a lot of good brews at this years Vancouver Brewfest.

I arrived Friday afternoon right before opening and grabbed a program. My goal was to plan out the ones I have not had, and pace myself for the weekend. But, these plans never come out that way.

This year’s featured brew was a collab between Brothers Cascadia and the Couve Brew Bevy (yay!! If you’re a female craft brew lover, you should join us at Final Draft Taphouse). It was a nice, hoppy lager to start off the day.

After attending these for a bit and some other networking gigs, I’ve become friends with some of the local brewers. So it wasn’t long until I met up with a few and we started our way around.

One of my first favorites was something I don’t tend to drink on hot sunny days. The Summer Honey Porter from Northwest Passage was delicious. It was still nice and light for summer, but nice and roasty. Add to the fact that since they do not have a taproom, it’s hard to come by. These guys know how to brew.

Now that I am looking through my list, it seems that none of my favorites are my typical choices. I think my subconsciousness was going for something different.

Next up, mead. That’s right, the sweet, sweet honey wine of old. I am NOT someone who likes super sweet. If my daughter gets me candy, it’s either black licorice or dark chocolate. So I tried a few of the meads and could not drink the whole thing. However, Ethereal Mead has a cherry blend called Raven that was phenomenal. Not super sweet and the cherries seemed to balance out and add some acid.

Last up? Another non beer….well kinda. Just like the mead, I rarely drink cider as I find it really sweet. However, if you are Alter Ego and bring a Snakebite in as a colab with Ex Novo, THEN you have my attention.

Another lesson I learned this time? Let your taste buds settle down after drinking sours BEFORE trying others. I kept getting mixed up with my flavor profiles, handing the taster over to my husband or a friend wondering what was wrong with it. Turns out, if you’ve been drinking sours all morning, you might need some palette cleanser before jumping over.

Another great year in the bag and I am so happy that I get to continue to work with these amazing people promoting local craft brews AND donating some serious cash to local charities. If I remember correctly, Cody Gray and his foundation have donated over $80k since 2014.

Next beer event? I ‘ll be participating in the Mashfest at Pearson Field in September and hoping to attend as many Northbank Beer Week events that I can!